Read a great article last night about 8 steps for significant weight loss had alot of good tips that are not the typical just eat freggies and protein and get lots of exercise because if you have a significant amount to lose your probably facing other issues and I liked that they took that into consideration as well and really addressed what you need to do long term/attitude wise. So here are the 8 steps!

1. Adapt/adjust- realize that your not perfect shoot for making healthy choices 80% of the time instead of 100% or your setting yourself up for failure 2. Social Change- talk to friends family members about your healthy lifestyle change so that they can support you and not accidentally derail you, get them involved in doing physical activities with you, split entrees when you go out to eat ect. 3. Have a healthy kitchen- make a list when you go to the store to avoid impulse buys, stock healthy foods and manage munchies by preportioning out snacks as soon as you bring them home. 4.Food diary- for a week write down what you ate, when you ate it how much, where you were who you were with what you were feeling at the time and what you felt afterwards, after the weeks up look at your diary for patterns like eating out frequently with a certain friend or leaning towards salty foods when stressed or bored ect. 5. Do the math- spark does this for you but they had a formula for calculating how many calories you need its 655+(4.4x goal weight)+(4.6 x your heigh in inches)-(4.7x your age in years) = base calories multiply by 1.2 if little to no exercise or 1.3 if somewhat active 6. Find your zone- compare your food journal w/ your base calories write down changes needed and work on one thing at a time. use the 4 day strategy-focus on 1 thing for 4 days before adding the next and reward for each success 7. Get moving-move all day whenever you have an opportunity and aim for 10,000 steps a day. Keep challenging yourself once an exercise starts to become to easy or routine 8. Celebrate success every day, stay positive focus on what you do achieve rather than what you didn't maybe you didn't hit your 2lbs lost goal for the week but you did track your calories everyday or make it to the gym that morning celebrate the fact that your making those healthy changes and let go of the percieved failures to keep yourself from getting discouraged and giving up.

Today I read an article on the link between nutrition and breastfeeding

Basically the article says your diet impacts the amount, taste and quality of milk you produce. The tips it gives are to add about an additional 400 calories a day above your maintence calorie amount, limit caffeinated beverages to less than 2 c a day. Stay hydrated at least 6-8 cups a day or try to drink a cup of water each time you nurse and to watch for babies reaction to certain foods you eat like spicy foods or gas producing veggies, avoid alcohol and to take a multivitamin. Also gives a list of critical nutrients you need during breastfeeding, zinc, calcium and iron to support things like a healthy immunce system, cell reproduction, muscle/nerve function, transpoting oxygen to cells ect.

Information is constantly changing as far as what is best for our health and wellbeing, it seems like a new article or study is published every few minutes so it can be hard to keep up with the latest news. Use this thread to share interesting info or articles you read. You can either post a link to the article or just give a brief summary of what you read. It can be anything related to keeping yourself or loved ones healthy.

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